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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of teaching grammar through implicit and explicit approach by applying scaffolding technique on learners’ speaking abilities including: accuracy, fluency and complexity.

To this end, 90 BA students of architecture in Yazd Azad University were selected and homogenized through Oxford Placement Test. They were assigned to three groups each including 30 participants, and took an IELTS speaking as pre-test to ensure that they had the same speaking ability prior to the begging of the experiment. In the course of the study, the first experimental group (EG1) received implicit instruction through scaffolding, and the second experimental group (EG2) was taught through explicit instruction. In contrast, control group did not receive any kind of grammar teaching. After the completion of the treatment, all groups took speaking post-test.

The results of the study showed that while both explicit and implicit teaching of grammar through scaffolding had a significant impact on learners’ speaking fluency, implicit teaching in comparison with explicit teaching was more significantly effective on learners’ speaking fluency. Similarly, both implicit and explicit teaching of grammar through scaffolding had significant impact on learners’ speaking accuracy and complexity, but explicit teaching compared to implicit teaching was more significantly effective.

The results of the study are mainly beneficial to teachers in the way that they can teach grammar in a more efficient way, and consequently improve learners’ speaking. In addition, curriculum developers and second language learners will benefit from the results of this research.

There has always been a controversy over an effective way to teach speaking skill in EFL classes over the last decades. In this regard, one of the most controversial approaches to teaching speaking arose from the dichotomy of teaching grammar through implicit or explicit teaching of rules. This paper has originality in that it delves into this controversial issue at length and in details.

A substantial number of students read significantly below grade level, and students with disabilities perform far below their non-disabled peers. Reading achievement data indicate that many students with and at-risk for reading disabilities require more intensive reading interventions. This chapter utilizes the theoretical model of the Simple View of Reading to describe the benefit of early reading instruction, targeting both word reading and word meaning. In addition, evidence is presented supporting the use of word meaning instruction to improve accurate and efficient word reading for students who have failed to respond to explicit decoding instruction.

This paper reports on a quasi-experimental research performed in the field of reading comprehension and translation quality. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the comparative effect of explicit vs implicit reading comprehension skills on translation quality of Iranian translation students at BA level.

The design of this research was quasi-experimental in nature. This design was preferred in this study, as it was impossible to assign random sampling to the subjects and apply a true experimental design. The research in hand was also a comparative group design research in a sense that it was supposed to compare two reading comprehension methods (explicit vs implicit) with different treatments.

In light of this research, some conclusions can be drawn. It can be concluded that there is a positive and direct relationship between reading comprehension and translation, as the first step of translation is to understand the content of the source text (Reid, 1993).

The reading comprehension ability of translation students should be enhanced in their undergraduate classes so that they can better understand the source text and produce a more fluent translation. In order to teach reading comprehension skills, both implicit and explicit techniques can be applied; however, it is better if the subjects receive explicit instruction, as this technique may have more positive results.

Various researchers have explored explicit and implicit instructions on such areas as reading, speaking and listening (see, e.g. Jalilifar and Alipour, 2007; Vahid Dastjerdi and Shirzad, 2010; Negahi and Nouri, 2014; Khanbeiki and Abdolmanafi-Rokni, 2015; Khoii et al., 2015; Mostafavi and Vahdany 2016; Rahimi and Riasati, 2017). Although the results of these studies have shown the positive impacts of both explicit and implicit teaching, explicit has more positive impacts. However, the review of the literature shows that explicit and implicit reading comprehension skills have not been investigated in relation to teaching translation and their possible impacts on translation quality.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to explain the importance of thinking flexibly about the gradual release of responsibility (GRR) during the implementation of an explicit strategy instruction model, Critical Elements of Strategy Instruction (CESI). When the GRR model is typically used to inform teachers’ pedagogical practices, each phase of the scaffolding in the gradual release is usually represented as being a straight line of progression from modeling to guided practice, and then to independence. Scaffolding is often viewed as being a more static progression needed by all students. The authors explore the ebb and flow of scaffolding necessary in the GRR model when teaching the CESI framework to elementary aged students who demonstrated different degrees of competence in applying reading strategies.

Design/Methodology – The findings presented are the result of a two-year longitudinal professional development study with nine in-service elementary school teachers (one male and eight female), with masters’ degrees who ranged in experience from six to 18 years. The teachers used the Pedagogy of Video Reflection (Shanahan et al., 2013) to reflect on their implementation of the CESI, which draws upon the GRR model.

Findings – The authors use examples from their two-year explicit strategy instruction research to illustrate how their experienced in-service teachers learned to think more flexibly about scaffolding in the GRR model. Teachers explored their misconceptions about explicit strategy instruction and the gradual release. Two major shifts in their thinking were the GRR model was not the static model they interpreted it to be and they also realized that they had to use a gradual release when teaching readers the conditional knowledge so readers could use strategies independently.

Research Limitations/Implications – A two-dimensional representation of a complex concept, like the GRR can result in a less nuanced understanding of a complex concept, even when many of these issues are previously discussed in research and practitioner publications.

Practical Implications – Classroom teachers are provided with a more complex understanding of GRR model, where they need to interpret student responses to know when to and not release learners.

Originality/Value of Chapter – This chapter captures in-service teachers’ perspectives of the GRR model as being flexible instead of static and also reveals how student responses can be used to gauge how to make adaptations to ­scaffolding.

This chapter discusses what special instruction is and alternative ways of providing special education. It considers the values and limitations of the typical self-contained classrooms and special schools, resource rooms staffed by special educators, collaboration with general educators, and co-teaching in addition to inclusion. The revolutionary idea that a science of instruction should guide the evolution of instruction and instructional environments is also discussed.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to consider the historical context of the gradual release model as it emerged following the early twentieth century emphasis on behaviorism as psychologists (and reading researchers) increasingly focused on cognition in the reading process. This “cognitive turn” in educational psychology was followed closely by a “social turn” with its focus on the socially constructed nature of texts, learning, and reading, particularly influenced by Vygotsky and work on scaffolding.

Design/methodology/approach – This chapter uses literature from the field to contextualize the gradual release of responsibility (GRR) model and to discuss research or practice chapters included in this edited volume.

Findings – This chapter described the transition from behaviorism to cognition to social construction as it applies to the reading process generally and to GRR in particular. It noted that this transition has required teachers to be more nimble and flexible than ever before, cautioned that the complexity of classroom life and the pressures on teachers can cause techniques such as GRR to be misused, and suggested ways to manage the group work which is central to social cultural approaches to literacy. And along the way it spotlighted the ever-widening range of applications of the GRR documented in the earlier chapters of the book.

Practical implications – The section in this chapter with most immediate practical implication is clearly the section on misuses of the GRR model. This section discusses some misuses of the model: neglecting explicit teaching; missing the middle (i.e., jump from explicit teaching directly to independent practice); and applying in an overly rigid manner.

Originality/value of paper – This chapter makes an original contribution to the field in providing a historical context for the gradual release model and for addressing the chapters in this edited collection. The authors also point to some areas for next steps forward as reminders to those applying the model.

Students with mathematics-related learning difficulties (MLD) experience difficulties in many areas of mathematics achievement; without intervention, these difficulties will persist. In this chapter, I first review research examined cognitive processes deficits of MLD. Because difficulties in learning mathematics are presumably due to these cognitive deficits, findings of these studies can shed light on developing effective intervention programs. Second, using Response to Intervention (RTI) as a framework to distinguish the intensity level of intervention, I review findings from existing Tier 2 and Tier 3 intervention studies and synthesize the instructional approaches used in these studies as well as the factors researchers used to intensify the intervention. Finally, Data-Based Individualization (DBI), a systematic approach to intensify intervention, commonly used at the Tier 3 level, is review. Suggestions for future research directions for intensive mathematics intervention are also provided.

In this chapter, we focus on specially designed instruction (SDI) as a core value for the field of specific learning disabilities (SLD). SDI is at the heart of special education, and the field of LD has been built on the core value that effective instruction improves student outcomes. We describe a two-step test and an extended example of what is and is not SDI for Matt, a student with an SLD. Finally, we discuss some of the confusion surrounding SDI and the need for the field to return to its core value of individualized, intentional, targeted, evidence- or high leverage practice–based, and systematic instruction for students with SLD.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the conceptual and historical genesis of the gradual release of responsibility (GRR) model (Pearson & Gallagher, 1983) which has become one of the most commonly used instructional frameworks for research and professional development in the field of reading and literacy.

Design/Methodology/Approach – This chapter uses a narrative, historical approach to describe the emergence of the model in the work taking place in the late 1970s and early 1980s in reading research and educational theory, particularly at the Center for the Study of Reading at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana as carried out by David Pearson, Meg Gallagher, and their colleagues.

Findings – The GRR Model began, in part, in response to the startling findings of Dolores Durkin’s (1978/1979) study of reading comprehension instruction in classrooms which found that little instruction was occurring even while students were completing numerous assignments and question-response activities. Pearson and Gallagher were among those researchers who took seriously the task of developing an instructional model and approach for comprehension strategy instruction that included explicit instruction. They recognized a need for teachers to be responsible for leading and scaffolding instruction, even as they supported learners in moving toward independent application of strategies and independence in reading. Based in the current research in the reading field and the rediscovery of the work of Vygotsky (1978) and the descriptions of scaffolding as coined by Wood, Bruner, and Ross (1976), Pearson and Gallagher developed the model of gradual release. Over time, the model has been adapted by many literacy scholars, applied to curriculum planning, used with teachers for professional development, reprinted numerous times, and with the advent of the Internet, proliferated even further as teachers and educators share their own versions of the model. This chapter introduces readers to the original model and multiple additional representations/iterations of the model that emerged over the past few decades. This chapter also attends to important nuances in the model and to some misconceptions of the instructional model.

Research Limitations/Implications – Despite the popularity of the original GRR model developed by Pearson and Gallagher and the many adaptations of the model by many collaborators and colleagues in literacy – and even beyond – there have been very few publications that have explored the historical and conceptual origins of the model and its staying power.

Practical Implications – This chapter will speak to researchers, teachers, and other educators who use the GRR model to help guide thinking about instruction in reading, writing, and other content areas with children, youth, pre-service teachers, and in-service teachers. This chapter provides a thoughtful discussion of multiple representations of the gradual release process and the nuances of the model in ways that will help to dispel misuse of the model while recognizing its long-standing and sound foundation on established socio-cognitive principles and instructional theories such as those espoused by Jerome Bruner, Lev Vygotsky, Anne Brown, and others.

Originality/Value of Paper – This chapter makes an original contribution to the field in explaining the historical development and theoretical origins of the GRR model by Pearson and Gallagher (1983) and in presenting multiple iterations of the model developed by Pearson and his colleagues in the field.

The primary purpose of this chapter is to describe a synergistic “hybrid” model of Response to Intervention (RtI) that combines individualized effective Tier 1 classroom instruction with powerful early intervening services. First, we provide an overview and explain how RtI traditionally has been conceptualized. Next, we illustrate how to implement a hybrid model that focuses on beginning reading instruction and also incorporates additional school-level resources. Finally, we will discuss implementation issues related to identifying children who need additional intervention and propose directions for future research.